‘Let’s Give Bethel Back to the People’ Letter to the Editor from Billy Michael

To anyone who has followed the past six years of the Knickerbocker administration, the First Selectman’s recent comment  that he has a “commitment to keeping town government small” would appear to be classic election cycle revisionism. (CLICK HERE to read “First Selectman’s Vision for Bethel” on Bethel Advocate.)

It was only a few years ago at the Annual Town Budget Meeting that Mr. Knickerbocker either could not or would not answer the simple question, “How many town employees (excluding Board of Ed) do we currently have?” Following the meeting, the Comptroller informed me that there were 137 full- and part-time employees.

Those of us who treasure Bethel’s Town Meeting Form of Government have been under siege by the long Knickerbocker administration.

Mr. Knickerbocker charged his hand-picked members of the last Charter Revision Committee to consider a five-member Board of Selectmen instead of the current three, and to increase the term of office from 2 years to 4 years.

Additional proposals would have thwarted the checks and balances in our current government by seriously weakening the power of the Board of Finance to make line item reductions to proposed budgets, as well as increasing the number of signatures required to bring government actions to referendum by petition.

The First Selectman’s Charter Revision “success” of raising the threshold of town expenditures subject to Board of Finance oversight from $25,000 to $50,000 is what caused the the current controversy over the $39,000 unauthorized invoice to for the energy project. Prior to this Charter change the Finance Board would have had to approve this expenditure prior to any work taking place.

Knickerbocker’s problem with small town government can be seen in his 13-month under-the-radar negotiations with Aquarion for the sale of our Public Water Department and 370 acres of watershed property. Further, he excluded the taxpayers from the process and only agreed to call a referendum in response to the sheer public outrage unleashed by his disregard for the people of Bethel.

Knickerbocker believed that neither the Board of Finance nor the citizenry had a proper role in the decision to demolish of the Old Town Hall. He felt that this should fall solely under the purview of the Town Attorney. Ultimately, it was petitioned to referendum and the demolition was overwhelmingly supported. What that referendum succeeded in doing was to prevent giving future Selectmen and Town Attorneys a precedent for demolishing taxpayer property without voter approval.

The Transit Oriented District project dubbed “Bethel Forward” represents 260 acres of downtown Bethel and the creation of a “high-density urban village” which will change the small town character of Bethel forever. There will be increased costs for that project that we cannot foresee, and this burden will be added on to Bethel’s mill rate which is among the highest in the area.

If we want to leaders who really value small town government, we need to elect individuals who support putting critical issues and projects out to referendum for the people to decide. Those candidates are Will Duff and Paul Szatkowski for First Selectman and Selectman, and Bryan Terzian, Cynthia McCorkindale and James L’hernault for Board of Finance. Let’s give Bethel back to the people!

Billy Michael
Bethel, CT